kella

kella's Reviews:

Educated by Tara Westover

I added this as an impulse buy to an Amazon order because I kept seeing it pop up on so many “Best of 2018” lists. And for good reason. As many others have said, this book is phenomenal. Educated is Westover’s memoir; her story of growing up in an extreme, fanatical, Mormon household (no one was permitted to see a doctor, children weren’t enrolled in school, half of the kids didn’t even have birth certificates, etc). She eventually escapes from this life and goes on to graduate from BYU and eventually earn her PhD. I’d hate for anyone to read this […]

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The Sacred Enneagram by Christopher Heuertz

For those not familiar with the Enneagram, I don’t really want to take up a ton of space with that explanation here. Basically, it is an ancient system of categorizing folks into 9 types. It’s more than a personality test; it focuses on internal motivations, wounds, and passions. It recognizes that the ‘type’ that you are is really a self-preservation mechanism that you learned as a child in order to protect the real you. There is a TON of info out there about this, so if you’re into self-discovery (especially in how it helps you understand and relate to those […]

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How To Stop Time by Matt Haig

I picked this up this afternoon as a cozy read during a snow day where work is cancelled and everyone is snowed in. How To Stop Time is about Tom, a man who had a medical condition that causes him to age incredibly slowly. He’s not immortal, this isn’t played off as sci-fi or fantasy. He will eventually age and die, but in the meantime he is 439 years old and appears to be 41. The story takes us back and forth between present day London, where Tom is attempting to find meaning in life by teaching high school […]

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Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis

After reading Cannonballer Niki’s review of this book earlier this month, it cemented my decision to NOT read it. I had been wavering until that point; it kept being recommended to me as a “life changing read, like, omg”, but something about it never really sat right with me. Then I read Niki’s review, and it articulated & confirmed my hesitations, and I removed it from my Amazon ‘Save for later’ list (where it had been living for months). And then a bunch of women in my book club wanted to read it. And then my sister-in-law gifted me with […]

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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Despite this book being raved about by so many, and making an appearance on tons of “My Favourite Books” lists, I had no idea what it was about. I picked it up on a whim during a long road trip when I just wasn’t feeling the books that I had packed (THIS is why you always overpack books, people!). From the description on the back cover, I was expecting an easy-breezy, chick lit style book about a quirky-but-loveable character – and initially that’s what it appeared to be. Eleanor is a slightly odd 30-year old woman who lives a solitary, […]

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Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

Well, CBR10 was an epic disaster for me (I think I reviewed one book? maybe?), but we’re going to give ‘er another go this year. And what better way to kick things off than with the latest instalment in the Inspector Gamache series. There are very few books that I pre-order and am willing to pay full price for the hardcover immediate release. This series is one of those exceptions. This is the 14th book to date, and I can’t stress enough that you should go back and start from the beginning, because the beauty is not just in the […]

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Option B by Sheryl Sandberg

I really really wanted to love this book. I picked it up after hearing Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, speak at a conference last summer. I found her to be an engaging speaker and I immediately picked up her two books, hoping for more of the same. In Option B, she talks primarily about unexpectedly losing her husband and how she has coped since his death. The book’s subtitle, “Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy”, leads one to believe that the lessons she learned can be applied to all adverse situations. In reality, she spoke mostly about grief. While […]

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Oh hello there. Well CBR9 was a bit of a bust for me, in that life got crazy and I read exactly one book in Nov/Dec. ugh. But let’s give it a go again! I’m starting off this year with a book club pick, Cutting For Stone…and yeah, it was great. After an unfortunate reading hiatus, and a crazy holiday, this was a great book to get lost in. Marion & Shiva are identical twins born to a nun in Ethiopia at the missionary hospital where she works. When she tragically dies in childbirth and their assumed father abandons them, […]